Liberty High School graduate awarded prestigious MLB award

Liberty High School graduate Mitch Lukevics has had his fingerprints on Major League Baseball for the past 32 years, but not in the way he originally thought.

Lukevics, a second-round pick out of Penn State by the Chicago White Sox in 1975, wanted to reach the Major Leagues as a pitcher, but was released by the organization weeks after getting married in 1981. At the time, his plan was to return to Bethlehem and be a teacher and coach baseball.

"I look back 38 years later and go, 'Wow, where did the time go? How did this happen?'" said Lukevics, a 1971 graduate of Liberty. "I didn't set out to be in a Major League front office. I wanted to teach and coach in Bethlehem, Pa., and give back to the community that was good to me."

With teaching jobs hard to come by for Lukevics, he agreed to go back to the White Sox as a minor-league pitching coach in the Gulf Coast League. That job led to a series of front-office jobs for the White Sox, New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays. All of those have led to his current one as the director of minor-league operations for the Rays.

For his work in helping the Rays continually turn out high-quality players from its farm system, Lukevics, 59, was presented with the Sheldon "Chief" Bender Award at the conclusion of the MLB Winter Meetings earlier this month in Nashville, Tenn.

"I was honored and humbled winning the Chief Bender Award," Lukevics said. "I knew Chief, I knew what he stood for. When you win an award like the Chief Bender Award, it's really special."

Bender was the director of minor-league operations for the Cincinnati Reds from 1967-1988. The Reds won two World Series titles during that span, before winning another in 1990.

The award came at a trying time for Lukevics. Just weeks before traveling to Nashville, his wife of 32 years, Karen, died of a rare form of ovarian cancer. Without her support, Lukevics said none of his success would have been possible.

"My wife, Karen, was the consummate baseball wife, and I'm forever grateful for that," Lukevics said. "She was a person who cared more about others and really helped me in my journey of life. ... When you have a great teammate for 32 years and now she gets this rare form of ovarian cancer and goes through this without complaint, she's my hero, I can tell you that. Certainly she's our kids' (Matt and Megan) hero as well."

There is a bond between Lukevics and the players whom he has helped reach the big leagues. Most of the time, those players have come up through Lukevics' organization. But one exception to that is Matt McBride, who made his MLB debut last year with the Colorado Rockies.

Despite being in different organizations, Lukevics and McBride have the bond of graduating from Liberty. The fact that there are just a few people in the MLB from the Lehigh Valley has drawn the two together.

"He's in a different organization, but being that we went to the same high school, you always have that connection with somebody," McBride said.

The pair doesn't talk that often, but just having somebody who played in the minor leagues and works closely with minor leaguers has been a help to McBride.

"It's not the easiest thing, playing in the minor leagues," McBride said. "You're doing it for a little while and it can definitely be a grind. It's nice to have somebody to talk to that's basically been through the same situation that you're going to go through or you're going through."

Along his different stops, Lukevics had helped some of the game's biggest names reach the majors.

When he was the director of minor-league operations for the New York Yankees, players such as Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera were signed and developed. Most recently, he has seen the emergence of Evan Longoria, David Price and Jeremy Hellickson with the Rays.

Tampa Bay is perennially near the bottom of the league in payroll, making it necessary for the organization to develop players to be competitive in the American League East.

The margin of error on prospects is less with the Rays than with any of their AL East competitors like the Red Sox, Yankees and Blue Jays, who have spent millions more on their players. The stakes may be higher for the Rays, but since there is already a natural level of competition between clubs anyway, it has not stopped Lukevics from enjoying the job.

"I didn't become a big-league player, but I'm associated with a bunch of really good guys committed to helping a bunch of young men hopefully one day become major-league players," Lukevics said. "I think that's a cool thing."

Lukevics' career has taken him from Chicago to New York to Tampa, but amidst all the travels, he has always looked back fondly on growing up in Bethlehem. And despite not having any plans to retire soon, Lukevics knows there's always one place where he can return when his front-office days are done.

"The Lehigh Valley is home," Lukevics said. "Some day, when I'm able to get to retirement, I don't know what I'll do, but there's always that option of coming home. I'm a proud son of Bethlehem, Pa."